A Vision for Virtual Conferencing

Covid-19 forced conferences to break from tradition, now it’s time to reimagine their future

We are living through the biggest disruption that modern scholarly meetings have faced. Seemingly overnight in March (literally overnight in a few cases) we went from cautiously carrying on with in-person events, to tumbling down a rabbit-hole into a brand-new world. 

As we find ourselves careening through this unfamiliar virtual territory, meeting planners are doing the best they can with the tools at hand. But as the dust begins to settle, something is becoming increasingly clear: This sudden switch to virtual will forever change how we conference… 

There is no rewind button, folks

There’s no undoing what’s unfolded during this strange and stressful year. Our new reality has forced us to think and act creatively. In nearly every industry, we’re adopting tools that might’ve otherwise taken a decade to gain traction. And after such a massive change, it’s hard to go back to exactly how things were. 

Before this year, most meeting planners had never run a virtual event. Even hybrid events were still considered a novelty. Yet, planners everywhere are making the switch to virtual with impressively tight turnarounds. And, in doing so, they’re realizing that attendees don’t expect to be served up a carbon-copy of last year’s event. That being able to tune in and access content in their own homes and on their own terms isn’t necessarily a terrible thing for delegates. And that there may be hidden benefits in this new medium.

And the tools are playing catch-up too. Until now, minimal demand for virtual meant the tools didn’t evolve. But the rush to virtual is forcing event tech companies to start building fast. 

As virtual tools and online conferences begin to mature, and as more events are born virtual instead of forced to pivot, we need to start the journey of reimagining what’s possible for the scholarly conference.

Identifying the jobs to be done

I’ve been designing products for about 15 years now. One mode of thinking that has impressed me most in those years is a thought methodology called JTBD (or “Jobs to be Done”). It’s a lens you can look through to identify the desired outcomes people will get from using your product. People care that a product can do the job that needs doing. They care much less about how it delivers that outcome.

The same principle holds true for researchers who attend conferences. We may say that conferences are about networking. But nobody goes to a conference for networking in and of itself; they go for the outcome that networking delivers. They go to improve their prospects, to advance their career, to further their research. And as long as the “job to be done” is done, whether a presentation happens onstage or online becomes irrelevant. 

But simply holding fast to physical event structures won’t cut it, because these traditions have in-built limits. The web also comes with its own predefined patterns of discovery and connectivity and we need to re-orientate our approach to adopt them. 

For virtual scholarly events to provide the outcomes our attendees need, it’s up to all of us to write the rulebook for them. 

Here’s some ways I think we should get started.

Content: Becoming the Netflix of your field

At traditional in-person meetings, attendees’ access to valuable conference content was usually restricted to the hours during which the event took place. But virtual frees us from these constraints. Even keynotes and plenaries can be replayed “live” multiple times, to suit researchers in Tokyo and Lagos and San Francisco. Virtual also allows us to easily extend access to content, releasing much of it on-demand as researchers require it. Even hosting it year-round, if that’s what benefits your community. 

Historically, large in-person conferences existed because we had to bring everyone together during the days the venue had capacity. We crammed massive events into two or three days because we needed to. It’s unlikely that physical events will go away completely. But all in, I don’t believe we’ll ever see a return of strictly physical conferences on a grand scale. Instead, the ability for virtual to supplement physical in the form of hybrid meetings opens up another world of possibilities. In the future, maybe we won’t need to have 50 parallel sessions running at once. Now, it’s easier to imagine swapping that out with a month-long series where everyone presents virtually, followed by a shorter, in-person meeting for people to connect and discuss, delivering the best of both worlds. 

Experience: Reimagining how we connect with our audience

Simply moving the old ways of conferencing online won’t produce better outcomes. Instead, we need to focus on defining the online experience. We need to craft products that allow people to share their work easily, paradigms that encourage connection and interfaces that are a joy to use. We need to create tools that empower event professionals and scholars to produce amazing online content experiences.

Virtual scholarly conferences will also have the sort of global reach that was impossible before now. We don’t yet have the data to back this up (though I’m sure the research community is already working on it) but my gut is that they’ll be built on a model of larger audiences paying lower registration fees. Already, the American Society of Clinical Oncology saw record-breaking attendance at their virtual meeting this year. For the folks who simply can’t travel or afford to attend traditional conferences, virtual means they’ll be able to access content on their own terms, leading to more effective dissemination of valuable knowledge around the globe. (And with better coffee too.) 

Interaction: Rebuilding the serendipity of in-person encounters

As excited as I am about online experiences, I recognize that some things are difficult to translate. The serendipitous feeling of meeting someone in the queue for the buffet is one. Networking is a big part of the puzzle in delivering the outcomes that attendees expect from scholarly conferences. It’s also the part that I’m most excited about because it feels like the hardest bit to get right online. I can’t wait to tackle this challenge. And I believe that virtual experiences can become more powerful than physical meetings in facilitating meaningful connections.

Online, we interact differently, often relying on smaller nudges to build rapport over time. We don’t start virtual conversations by commenting on the buffet food. Instead, we begin by bonding over content and shared interests. The comment thread on an eye-opening presentation is one method to achieve this. A casual video chat organized around an area of specialization is another.

When I look at networking in this light, I see a big opportunity for virtual experiences. That intuitive focus on interaction around content can quickly connect us with relevant people and conversations. No awkward small talk necessary. And so, the online setting may even allow more room for introverts, or for early-career researchers without much social capital. Suddenly, they’re no longer at a disadvantage just because they’re not the loudest in the room. 

A virtual conference on virtual conferencing… 

When we tumbled down that rabbit hole back in March, my team at Ex Ordo recognized that virtual was going to play a seismic role in supporting the future of events. And more than anything, our customers needed a virtual conference platform that could handle the unique needs of a scholarly conference. So we went all-in to build one. Despite the months of hard slog, we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible. This disruption of tradition has presented a massive opportunity for scholarly conferences to evolve. Virtual and hybrid conferences have a role to play that has yet to be written.

We want to start by opening a dialogue with our community. To listen and learn, but also to provide a resource for education around online conferencing. So, using our first beta version of Ex Ordo Virtual, we’re holding a virtual conference about virtual conferencing (pretty meta, I know). Through this event, we hope to deliver an educational and collaborative experience for meeting planners and conference committees working in fields of research. Among a host of speakers, we’ll have keynotes from KiKi L’Italien, CEO and host of Association Chat, and Michelle Russell, Editor-in-Chief of PCMA’s Convene Magazine.  

ExOrdoCon2020 will be held on 1-2 July. It’s free and registrations are open now. I hope you’ll join us to help build the future of scholarly events. 

(By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about jobs to be done, check out Alan Klement’s excellent book, When Coffee & Kale Compete.)

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